They Waited For the Shark
by murderofonerose
Summary: Three guys on a boat. A brief deleted scene from aboard the Orca.


**Authors:** Pirate Hatter and murderofonerose

**Words:** 1222

**Disclaimer: **It would be _nice_ to make money from this, but we _don't_...

Slash if you squint, I suppose.

**

* * *

They Waited For the Shark**

* * *

"Hooper, stop playing with yourself."

"But I'm bored," Hooper whined.

"Bored, nothin'. We got a shark to catch," Quint quipped as he climbed down the ladder and disappeared into the control room.

"We haven't seen any sign of it for hours," Hooper protested, leaning over the edge of the top deck and trying to peer in after Quint. "It's been so long since anything happened that Martin's stopped complaining about how bad the chum bucket smells and started building fish-castles in it!"

Brody looked up from where he was sitting near the stern, chum bucket well away from him.

"Fish-castles?"

"I don't give to flips about what Chief's doin' or how long it's been. You listen to me when I give ya orders or so help me, you're goin' in'ta that chum mix!" Quint barked at the younger man, clearly in no mood to be disobeyed

"Fish-castles?" Brody repeated, apparently feeling quite strongly that this was a point which needed to be addressed as well.

Hooper stuck his tongue out at Quint. "Okay, oh captain my captain, what the hell else am I supposed to do?"

"You can shut the hell up and get down here and fix the damn engine! I don't need none of your city-boy attitude or snark and I can damn well get rid of ya like—" Quint snapped at him "—_that_. Now get down here and work! Or is that too hard for poor little rich boy?"

Hooper climbed down, grumbling something about how the shark had broken it so the shark should be the one who had to fix it. If Brody hadn't still been trying to work "fish-castles" through his brain, he probably would have pointed out with great enthusiasm just how unhelpful the shark would be in that regard.

"Seriously... fish-castles?" Brody finally asked, standing up and walking to the little trap door to the engine room. Quint was hovering over the hole, watching Hooper with a critical eye, ready to point out and mock anything the city boy did.

Hooper groaned. "Oh for the love of... Like sand castles, Martin, only with fish. What do you expect me to call it when you've been playing in that bucket for the past hour?"

"Not fish-castles..."

"Watch it, Hooper, or you'll break the damn thing!" Quint suddenly snapped when Hooper got a little distracted in his work. Brody's head snapped up to see an enraged Quint, who was, for no real reason, very pissed off.

"Hey, lay off him a bit, will ya?" Brody said – almost snapping at him, but not quite. He feared Quint's wrath just a bit too much to actually snap at him. "Yelling isn't going to get it fixed any faster."

"Yellin's the only thing that'll get through his thick head," Quint growled down at Hooper. The younger (and clearly smarter, at least in terms of books) man bugged him on so many levels, he couldn't even begin to sum up his hatred.

"Thick is better than cracked," Hooper shot back, flipping him off.

Quint hauled Hooper up by the front of his shirt and snarled in his face. "I'll break your fingers, you son of a—" The man smelled of smoke, musk, and sea salt and it was, frankly, overpowering. Anyone who got a whiff of it knew instinctively not to mess with him.

"Nobody's breaking anything," Brody interjected firmly, poised to reach for his gun if need be. "That would be really counterproductive!"

Quint looked at Brody with death in his eyes. The glare seemed to fade after a moment of eye contact, though. Brody seemed to have a calming effect on Quint, because after that short pause, he let Hooper down onto the floor and cracked a slow smile.

"…Aye, Chief," he said with a nod. "Farewell and ado to you fair Spanish ladies," he walked out singing. "Farewell and ado to you ladies of Spain..."

Hooper propped his elbows on the edge of the hole and blinked up at Brody in amazement.

"You hypnotized him!"

"What?" Brody crouched down to be as close to eye level as they could manage. "Hypnotized? No... Quint just... does that. I think he likes me a lot better than he does you."

"Can't imagine why," Hooper grumbled. Brody smiled a bit.

"I'm sure he's just upset about the shark."

"And _I'm_ sure he's just a nut job. We can agree to disagree, right?" Hooper smiled beatifically at him. "You and I are the only rational people on this boat."

"Maybe… but Quint has sailing and shark hunting experience that we don't. And we're on his boat. You can survive another day or two without trying to claw his eyes out, right?"

"If I can't, it won't be because I started it," Hooper promised reluctantly.

"Chief, need you on the wheel!" Quint's voice called from above them. "And keep working that engine, Hooper."

Brody looked up towards the ceiling as Quint spoke, then back down to Hooper when he finished. He offered a 'I know, I know' smile and left the small galley control room.

Hooper could hear Brody ask, "Okay... What exactly am I doing with the wheel now?" as he walked away. Clearly the man had never actually steered a boat in his life. Laughing under his breath, Hooper went back to tinkering with the cranky engine.

"Ah f— and they say that pets don't resemble their owners," he snapped as it hissed and clanged at him.

Elsewhere on the boat, Quint leaned against the railing as he watched Brody hesitantly take hold of the wheel. "It's easy, Chief. You know your boat directions? Bow, stern, port, and starboard?"

_I know that port is where the boat docks_, Brody thought but knew better than to actually say.

"Yeah…"

"Hard to port, Chief," Quint suddenly said, testing him.

Brody blinked, stared briefly at the wheel as if it should know this order well enough by now to obey on its own, and then yanked it to the left.

Quint had half an idea Brody didn't know what the hell he was doing, so he had prepared himself for the worst. Having a death grip on the railing seemed to pay off when the Orca jerked to port and he heard several clanging noises from the galley and the unmistakable sound of Hooper's yelp. He laughed loudly and told Brody to "Steady her out, Chief."

"Er, right," Brody muttered, and spun the wheel the other way.

"Ack!" Quint was nearly thrown over the railing by the sharpness of the turn. He found his footing, as all good sailors do, and grabbed the wheel.

"I said steady it, Chief! Not throw me over to kingdom come!" The Orca was eventually steadied out, not thanks a lot to Brody, and they sailed further out to sea.

"Maybe I'd be better off fiddling with that engine," Brody said glumly.

"Any good with tools?" Quint asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well..." Brody rubbed the back of his neck. "I fixed a toaster once. Sort of..."

"You go chum the water, Chief." Quint chuckled slightly and turned back to look at the horizon.

"Right..."

Brody climbed back down the ladder, muttering about fish-castles.

"Farewell and ado to you fair Spanish ladies..." Quint sang softly, drifting off into memories of the Indianapolis.

They waited for the shark.


End file.
